The Undergroung Man, Age Sixty
by astroturf
Summary: A continuation of Notes From Underground. Looks at the narrator, age sixty, and tries to remain true to the same tone and style in which the rest of the book was written.


But enough; I don't want to write more from "Underground." Twenty years have passed since I wrote those notes, and upon rereading them I am ready to reveal myself above ground, to show myself to the people once again. Now that I have cleansed myself in such a way, through my words, and revealed all of myself on these pages, I am prepared to extricate myself from this self created situation which has caused me to spiral uncontrollably toward defeat. I will no longer be defeated. Wait, I lied, I will no longer accept defeat, although I may well be forced to face it again in the end, as I have so many times before. This time I will put my ideals into practice. I am an old man now, reflective and impassioned by my own words, no longer the naïve youth who lived only to regret with every fiber of his being the decisions he made, the battles he fought, the many injustices he oversaw and did nothing to stop. He, the young man of twenty four, is no more similar to me than a horse to a chicken; he let his temper flair in vain, he pushed himself underground with the power of his own actions, he silenced himself by choosing the wrong words when he spoke. That is no longer who I am.

From him I arise, a new man, thoughtfully pondering the meanings of what I have seen, read and heard, no longer whiling away time on books that are no longer of any interest. That alone is no longer enough for me, that alone can no longer satisfy my need to spread the word, to impassion a new generation to do what is right, to fight the true injustices, and to rise above and go beyond their forbearer's and question what is and always has been placed in front of them as fact. It is true that I still think myself a superior being to any I have encountered; it is also true however that I am old, I am brittle and I am twenty years from my death now. No longer can I uphold foolery simply out of spite, or pace a room, drunken and angry for hours on end. No, I can no longer be the sole foot soldier in the battle against rational egoists and Utopian socialists. Certainly I can no more fight the battle myself, than I can abandon the truth of what I have fought for. No, that will certainly never happen. And as such, I must approach the situation somewhat differently this time, from a new perspective, that of a hunched over, sixty year old man, with a failing liver and no teeth. How will the younger generations know whom to turn to when they wish to abandon the rationalism that their parents and no doubt their university professors have shoved down their throats? Who will save them from a life of 2 times 2 equals 4, when they have plainly surpassed their fathers and teachers to find that perhaps, sometimes, it equals five?

This is my hope for what has gone on above ground in my long absence underground, with the quiet Earth as my companion, the maggots my cousins and uncles; those above me, out in the world must have learned something in my absence, found a new sense of emerging self as the bold youngsters of a new generation. They alone have held the torch for me, have forced their free will upon others, never to be rationalized away by fear or doubt or an officer in a pool hall pretending that they do not exist. If this is not the truth, I may have to see my death before the age of seventy. My rantings may have to cease before their time, quieted by the shock, horror, and unreality of a nation of people who still cannot question what is placed before them, who still cannot challenge the confines of rationality and arrive at something with so much more realism and meaning. We cannot all be the same and allow totalitarianism to reign supreme in the schools and the streets and the houses of government.

And yes one may admit to himself that my power as that young being was great, the influence I used to so dismay my opponents was strong, not regarding the fact that at the same time I perhaps doubly dismayed my own self. Yes, I was certainly misguided in the use of my many talents and the intense superiority which I held over every man I came across, none of them understanding what I was putting forth in front of them, none able to grasp the concepts which are so near and dear to my heart and mind, but which were only greeted by emptiness in theirs. How was I to help the downtrodden, how to uplift them all, the many who attempted to preserve rationality at all costs, completely ignoring the truth of the world in front of and around them. Yes, these thoughts used to drive me to complete madness, to be sure, and they certainly were never impressed upon my peers in the manner in which they appeared in my head. I was driven almost to insanity in my quiet, inner plea for change, for knowledge and for truth. I knew then as I know now that I am a surveyor of the world, a watcher and a listener of immense genius and talent who has the power and the ability to change my country and my countrymen, to shape the future of Russia and its youth. The old people are too ignorant already, too far gone, but for the youth I will attempt to reshape the world around me according to what I really believe. I will put my notes into action. You may be asking yourself why, after sixty years, with ailing liver, and health problems which are sure to ensue any moment now and engulf the last flicker of life remaining in my bones, why would I choose this time to put my "plan" into action? Why now have I decided to seek the light of day and perhaps of radiant hope? Why now will I face all that ails me and seek out those who have abandoned truth, and attempt to teach and to spread my own truths among the people. Once again I long "for movement despite everything.." and just like i did when I was twenty four I will emerge, if only for a while and see what I can make of my fellow Russians now.

It had first occurred to me to relive these segments of my life when i rewrote them in these notes. How could I possibly overlook their significance in my life having just rehashed them in my own mind and with my own pen. Not only does the situation with the officer continue to infuriate me to this day, but my decision to let go of Liza, to chase her out into the snow and not follow her, not search for her to my heart's content, until I was sure she was gone forever, that too creates somewhat of a dull sensation behind my eyes which causes me to flee onto my ratty couch to sob myself to silence, only reawakening hours later as if in a foggy haze, a dream, and still I can feel the warmth of Liza's body as I felt it that night when she offered me her protection and her pity, and what else she may have wanted to offer, I may never know. She is probably dead by now, long gone after a years of indebted servitude. No more letters from young plump-faced lads wishing for one last dance. No more men seeking her out in the dark hours of night, vodka on their breaths to have their way with her tenderly and then call her sweet Liza and convince her to let them be her savior. Now she must be nothing more than a diseased body, an unmarked grave, having been given an improper burial years ago. I would have been her savior if only she had not reversed our roles, if only she had not made me the piteous, disgusting creature of emotions, and she the wise comforter of my soul. If only I had not broken down like that in a moment of weakness and of shame. Of course I was ashamed, and I would be no less so now, as naturally I have the same couch, the same weak and meager teas and sweets, the very same torn and tattered dressing gown of a peasant. But alas, I realize now in my old age and in my newfound growth and genius that this has all been of my choosing. I refused to lower myself to work as a clerk for the government, refused to constantly surround myself with those who disgusted me day in and day out, repeating themselves and repeating their mistakes. Each idiosyncrasy magnified to the greatest degree until it seemed so unmanageable and preposterous that not even the threat of death could make them see beyond it and change it. And let me tell you gentlemen, I often thought of threatening death, or at least a good duel, but back then I was too much of a coward, felt myself at once too significant and too insignificant to engage in such activities.

And what, you ask, will I do when finally, in a few days time I chance to poke my head out of this burrow, to once again parlay the world and taste what it has to offer? Well, first I will certainly seek out that pompous Zverkov, who for so many years now has been working in a distant province, a slave to the government, a slave to his own opportunistic ideals, and surely as big an idiot as ever. I will approach him as an equal, without shame, and force him to notice me. I will no longer allow him to make himself comfortable at my expense, or make things easier for him by allowing him to avert his eyes from my ragged state which I am sure he will find despicable. His wife will bring us tea with black cherries, and biscuits while we talk about the old days and I unwittingly make fun of him as he stammers on account of his stupidity. I will no doubt bring up all of the times I shamed him in grade school with my intelligence, while he grew duller every year. This time he will not have the others to hide behind and to bolster him, this time I will be sure that he knows my purpose and understands the meaning of my words, my poignant words. Yes, I will locate his hiding place of all these years, and attempt to engage him in a literary discussion in which he will certainly fall short of my own intelligence, as well as, I am sure the intelligence of even his own wife and children. Yes, I am sure that a man such as himself has been blessed with many beautiful children, doting daughters and hard-working sons who certainly, like their father are slaves to the government, spending their days in handsome suits at mind-numbing jobs, looking down upon all who surround them with an air of importance that they do not deserve. Nevertheless, he will keep me as a guest in his home on the grounds that he will be too feeble to kick me out himself, and too ashamed in front of his family, his sweet-faced daughters. They will serve us vodka with our dinner and he will tell tales of his days working in the distant provinces of Russia, and I will play along and laugh and be merry, like an old friend of the family's, like one who is welcome. But before I go, I will force him to accept my truths, force him to denounce the ideals he has followed after his entire life, ultimately force him to admit that 2 times 2 equals five.

And what will this truly accomplish for me, you may ask gentlemen. There is a part of me that has always hated that night so many years ago, the way I left things with Zverkov and my old school chums. Something about the way things were left has had me feeling a bit disgraceful—I want to be the one who has the last stab at him, I want, without the noise of the others' nonsense, to exert my superiority over him once and for all, using my newfound wisdom and intellect that I have been cultivating all these years. And he, with his young daughters and brainwashed sons will return to his life, never the wiser for having given in to my meager demands, never letting his sons know what transpired so they may go on with their lives in the beliefs that totalitarianism and rationalism are the most important things to a man, a true citizen, and anything that does not fit inside of that box is not worthy of their thoughts or efforts. Ideologically, yes, I will have been defeated again by Zverkov, but I will find a way to exert myself over him, to have power over him that evening, which will become his secret shame, just as that night so many years ago that I spent with him has become mine.

And what about sweet Liza you ask? When I was thirty five years old I saw her again, for the first time since I was twenty-four years old. I was in the market buying potatoes and cheese on one of my extremely rare trips out into the world, and I saw her there at the flower stand. She was looking longingly at the blue irises with her hair pulled back and a scarf covering her sweet and delicate features against the wind. She did not notice me, I made sure of that, but when I saw her I thought I would die there in the middle of the city holding a sack of potatoes. I could not speak to her. I felt I had forgotten how to speak, having avoided contact with most human beings for so many years, excepting the short conversations I limited myself to with Apollon, which of course usually enraged me to my very core. Even when I was giving him simple instructions he seemed to outwardly mock me without uttering a word. He is a spiteful man, that Apollon. I followed Liza through the market square, gazing down intently at the tiny footprints her boots made in the melting snow, afraid that if I looked up she might glance at me and discover who I was. I followed her all the way back to the brothel, which by that time had a different name and certainly different clientèle. But sweet Liza was still there, working off her debt, or perhaps paying a new one. Either way I saw that I had failed, that she could not save herself, nor had she ever been married, or bore the children that I would fleetingly imagine her with in my waking dreams where her face appeared almost daily. Poor sweet Liza was unable to rise from her situation and create something new for herself, for her young body which still had so much to learn at her tender age, more than ten years earlier. Seeing Liza saddened me to my very core and caused me to fall into a deep despair for many years. It has been difficult to recount it even twenty five years later, for it is still as fresh in my mind as a deep wound which continues to throb to this very day.

Perhaps when I reemerge I will visit her brothel and find her and pay off her debt. Perhaps she will still be waiting for me, hoping that I will show up and let her save me as I will be saving her. She might still be young, she may have years left to her name.

I have many plans for the outside world, to approach my enemies and attempt to make them see, if just for a moment, who I am, to force others to take note of my immense genius and ability to think, although I have always felt that there is no one like me in the entirety of the world. You must be wondering, gentlemen, about the officer who ignored me for so many years. You must be asking yourselves why I have not planned to find him and to exert my forces upon him as well. He is dead, gentlemen. This I found out from an article in a newspaper that Apollon dragged in one afternoon about ten years ago. He had died of influenza in a military hospital, and was apparently quite well-loved and mourned by his peers. Until that day he would appear in many of my waking dreams alongside Liza, a hulking mass with vacant eyes. It seems I had won that battle after all, as I had avoided the influenza altogether by staying in my underground lair all winter, instead of carrying on with civic duties as I am sure the officer spent his entire life doing, until his dying day.

As we all well know, a man's favorite thing to talk about is himself, which is why I cannot help but give into my manly impulses and write about myself for so many years, rehashing so many of the significant experiences in my own life, which to another man may be of no significance whatsoever.

The author of this text died before he could finish writing it. His journal was found in 1932 in a long untouched basement alcove by builders who were clearing the area to build a new parliamentary building. It is unclear who he was and where he has been buried and there are no records of him on file with any governmental agencies. He has no living relatives, no kin to solve the mystery of who he had been and where he now lies.


End file.
